Re: '01 Blazer: Intermittent starting problems

#1

"Phil McCracken" <fxdyna (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Me again... I'm continuing to have a problem with my '01 Blazer (4.3L)
that I thought I had cleared up last week. Here's the story:
The wife takes it to work one day last week when we had some bad
weather. She said it turned over slowly when she went to work, and at
the end of the day, it just went "click, click, click" when she tried
to start it to come home. We went out and jump started it without any
problems. Got it home, pulled the battery and took it to a local
shop. The guy there said that it was taking a charge, but to put it
on a charger overnight... which I did. The next day, the vehicle
popped right off perfectly. I drove the vehicle into town and had the
guy at the battery shop test the battery again, test the charging
system and check to see if there was any unusual draw on the battery
when the vehicle was shut off. Everything checked out ok. So... I've
driven the vehicle for a week now without any problems.

Today, we took a little 60 mile (round trip) jaunt to do some major
grocery shopping, etc. We made several stops. When we returned
home, I parked the vehicle closer to the front door to make the
unloading of our bounty a little easier. I shut the vehicle off and
unloded our goods. About a half hour later, I attempted to start it
so that I could move it to its rightful place in the driveway. I got
the "errr... err... err... click... click... click..." of an engine
trying unsuccessfully to fire.

Anyone hazard a guess as to what's going on here?

Thanks!

P.S. Thanks to all who gave input about my $12 spark plug question!

Could be one or more things:

How old is the Battery? Was it load tested when it was Hot.
If its past its warrenty and not a $80-$100 battery then its most likely
beyond its service life.
It should measure 12.65V at rest, no load , fully charged. ( standard
battery voltage)
If it measures less then it may be sulfated. I'd say 12.45 volts at rest
will cause problems when its fully charged as measured with a
hydrometer. See http://www.batteryfaq.org/ to brush up on battery
health.

It seems like the battery cables are good, since once the battery is
charged it starts.

Alternator is not working all of the time. Is it still the original one?
Did you replace it with a rebuilt? Always get a dealer part, they have
the latest upgrades, where re-built's do not. At idle the voltage
should be 14V . GM's idle voltage spec is all over the place, that’s
another story.

Cheers

#2

A battery is like a bank account...

The electrical things on a vehicle make regular "withdrawals" from the
account.

The alternator makes regular "deposits" to the account.

If the alternator stops making "deposits", there will still be money left in
the account, but the funds will eventually run out.

When you charged the battery, you were making a deposit to the account the
alternator should have made.

Seems to me Mr. Alternator is not doing his job! I would fire him and hire a
young replacement with lots of energy to get the job done...

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Re: '01 Blazer: Intermittent starting problems

4x4 Chevy/GMC Trucks 4x4 Chevy/GMC Trucks Discussions (alt.autos.4x4.chevy-trucks)

Re: '01 Blazer: Intermittent starting problems - 05-02-2009 , 10:48 PM

Re: '01 Blazer: Intermittent starting problems - 05-03-2009 , 08:24 AM